Wale is a Washington, D.C. based rapper who proclaims himself to be the
“Ambassador of Rap for the Capital”. He has successfully been able to expand
from his Washington roots to gain national status in the rap game. His stage
name is pronounced Wah-lay, but it is actually short for his full name which is
Olubowale Victor Akintimehin. Wale was born in Washington D.C. on
November 21, 1984 and he is of Nigerian descent. His parents were immigrants
from Austria and they moved to the United States only five years before his birth.
Wale was raised in Washington but he and his family moved to Maryland when
he was ten years old. He went to Robert Morris College, Virginia State University,
and Bowie State with scholarships to play football. However, he eventually
dropped out of Bowie State in order to pursue his music career. Wale finally
got on the radio for the first time in 2003 with a track called,
“Rhyme of the Century”. A local DJ helped him out because he thought the
young rapper had potential. In 2005 he appeared in the Source magazine in
the “Unsigned Hype” column.
In 2006 Wale signed a deal with Studio 43 and released a few hits in the
Washington, Maryland, and Virginia areas. Wale’s music was influenced
heavily by ‘80s go-go music. His MySpace page though was a big contributor
to his success. In 2006 Wale also won an award for the
Breathrough Artist of the Year of Washington. In 2007, British producer
DJ Mark Ronson, who also produced Amy Winehouse, Christina Aguilera,
and Rhymefest, noticed Wale through MySpace. Wale made a deal with
Ronson for production and with that he released a mixtape called “100 Miles and Running”.
Soon, Wale was receiving lots of press attention included XXL Magazine
and even the New York Times. A bidding war arose between Epic, Atlantic,
and Def Jam record labels but he finally signed with Interscope in 2008.
In 2009 Wale released his album entitled, “Attention Deficit” which
included singles, Chillin’, Pretty Girsl, and World Tour.
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